Warner Delays `Unforgiven` Video Release

If you were waiting to see Clint Eastwood ride across your television screen in Unforgiven, you`re going to have to keep waiting -- probably until June, maybe July.

By normal schedules, Unforgiven, the Clint Eastwood western that won four Academy Awards on Monday night, should have been in video stores by now. Instead, it`s back in the movie theaters. Anticipating the Oscar sweep, Warner Bros. Studios decided to delay the video release and get another run in the theaters.

Unforgiven was released last summer. Usually, movies hit the video stores about six months after their theatrical release. For Unforgiven, that would have been late February or March.

``Last fall, (Warner Bros.) smelled an Oscar,`` said Ron Castell, vice president for programming at Blockbuster Entertainment. ``They thought maybe they could make more money on home video if they went for a second theatrical release.``

He said the delay -- and the four Oscars -- probably will add 40,000 to 50,000 copies to video stores` orders on the movie.

``And they`ll pick up a few million in the theaters,`` he said. Unforgiven reappeared at movie theaters about two weeks ago and may show at more theaters starting this weekend.

Today, it is showing at the Coral Springs Six, the Movies at Lauderhill, the Sawgrass 18 Cinemas and the GCC Mission Bay Plaza.

Castell said Fort Lauderdale-based Blockbuster probably would have made more money on the movie if it had been released on a normal schedule, but he does not resent Warner`s holding it back.

``Unforgiven is going to be a winner no matter when it comes out. Eastwood has always done well on video,`` Castell said. ``And the summer is our biggest time of the year. This is going to be a repeat renter. A real winner.``